


The Visitor

by loves_books



Category: The A-Team (2010), The A-Team - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 01:53:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6450712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/pseuds/loves_books
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He sits there in the damp filth of a shadowed alley, the only light coming from the flickering streetlamp nearby, and he stares at the knife in his hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Visitor

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that I've chosen not to use archive warnings on this story, but do see the end notes if you would like some idea of what to expect. 
> 
> This isn't my usual type of story.

He sits there in the damp filth of a shadowed alley, the only light coming from the flickering streetlamp nearby, and he stares at the knife in his hands.

He could do it. He will do it, soon. He knows enough to cut lengthways, along the vein, rather than across. Lengthways, and he’ll bleed out quietly in a few short minutes, slipping away into a peaceful sleep. No one will miss him. He’d lay good odds on the fact that no one will even find him for days, tucked away behind the bins as he is.

He’s still a boy, really, though he desperately wishes he was more of a man. A man wouldn’t have run when his last foster father had been so abusive and started to get a little handsy. A man would’ve fought back. A man wouldn’t have spent the last week living rough, stealing food to survive, and trying to decide what to do next.

But he’s just a boy, not quite sixteen. He has options, he knows he does, but none of them are good, and the knife in his hands is the easiest and most certain of them all.

He can feel the tears running down his cheeks, though he feels strangely calm, now that he’s made his decision at last. God will forgive him, he prays, and just let him rest. It will be so easy. And no one will miss him.

“Hey, kid.” The soft voice is unexpected, and he jerks his head up and around, looking for the speaker as his hand tightens automatically on the knife handle. “There you are. Thank God, I’m not too late.”

“Leave me alone.” The words that slip from his mouth sound like nothing more than the desperate plea of a helpless child, and he clears his throat, trying to make his voice a little deeper and a little more threatening. “I’ve got a knife. Just go away.”

“I’m not here to hurt you, I promise.” The owner of the voice steps slowly into view around the bins, hands held palm-up in front of his body, as if to show he is unarmed. “Can I sit?”

The boy hesitates. He hates the fact that he hesitates. “Sure. But sit over there.”

He gestures with his knife towards the other side of the alley, and the tall stranger walks slowly over to the opposite wall, folding his long legs elegantly beneath his body and sinking to the filthy ground, heedless of what are clearly designer jeans.

He watches as the man settles, with hands still held out away from his body. “Is this okay?” the stranger asks, and the boy shrugs. “I won’t come any closer.”

“What do you want?” Inwardly, the boy curses his stupidity. He should’ve asked that before letting the man sit down in the first place.

It’s the stranger’s turn to shrug then, broad shoulders rising and falling beneath his leather jacket, though he has a faint smile hovering on his lips at the same time. “Thought you could use someone to talk to,” he tells the boy, his voice smooth yet soft, persuasive yet inoffensive. 

“I have nothing to say,” the boy tells him firmly.

“Then how about you let me talk, huh?” The man holds the boy’s gaze for a long moment, his eyes shining a bright sky-blue even in the constantly flickering light. He’s older than the boy initially thought, perhaps in his late fifties or early sixties, though his wavy caramel hair is only just starting to show hints of silvery grey at the temples. His cheeks and chin are stubbled, his mouth wide and friendly, and the boy can’t help but think he seems oddly familiar, though he’s equally sure he’s never met this man before.

The boy swaps the knife from one hand into the other, testing his grip on the handle, and those bright blue eyes snap down to watch his actions, a hint of fear visible for just a second before a carefully blank mask falls over the stranger’s face.

“What do you want to talk about?” the boy asks, continuing to switch the knife from hand to hand, watching the man watching him. He feels numb, almost as if this is all happening to someone else.

“How about we talk about the future? Your future, specifically?”

The boy barks a laugh, though even to his own ears it sounds like little more than a pathetic sob. “I have no future.”

“Of course you do. Everyone does.” The stranger sounds so sincere that a part of the boy longs to believe he is speaking the truth, but he already knows how this particular conversation goes, and his heart sinks.

“Is this the part where you offer to take me back to your apartment for the night, out of the sheer goodness of your heart? Or the part where you say you’ll give me twenty bucks right here and right now, all for one harmless little blow job?”

He’s heard both over the last week, and far worse as well, though he’s never quite been desperate enough yet to agree. But if he doesn’t use the knife now, he knows he’ll soon have no choice.

The older man looks aghast, actually drawing further away until he is leaning back against the filthy wall opposite. “God, no,” he exclaims loudly, his voice echoing strangely in the alley. When he speaks again, he’s clearly holding himself back in an attempt to stay quieter; neither of them want to be overheard. “No, you don’t have to do that. You don’t ever do that, not even once, though you’ll be tempted. I know how much you’ll be tempted, believe me.”

“I know I don’t have to. I won’t have to, not if I do this.” The boy waves the knife in the air, but those blue eyes stay locked on his own this time, not to be distracted.

“If you do that…” The stranger breaks off, shaking his head and taking a deep breath. He seems to go through some sort of internal battle before coming to a decision, and his next words are calm and sure. “You do go ahead with your plan, but it doesn’t work out the way you hope. You’ll be found by a waiter coming out of a restaurant round the corner for a cigarette break, and they get you to the hospital in time. It isn’t worth it.”

How can he possibly know that, this strange man who seems to have appeared in the middle of the alley out of thin air? “So what else can I do?” the boy asks, trying not to sound as if he is begging for help. “I don’t have any choice – it’s either this, or hooking, or going back to an abusive foster home. And I won’t go back there.”

“Go back to the orphanage instead,” the stranger says immediately, leaning forwards. “Father Maghill is there, and he’s worried about you. They’re already looking for you.”

“Father Maghill left.” The boy shakes his head, disappointed. “He moved to New York. Didn’t even look back.” Just another one in a long stream of people who have abandoned him over the course of his short, useless life, he thinks bitterly.

It doesn’t even cross his mind to wonder why this strange man knows about the Father. It should, of course, be impossible.

“He’s back,” the man tells him softly. “It didn’t work out there, and he never really wanted to go in the first place, you know that. He’s back at Sacred Heart. Even though you ran away from that horrible foster home – and he won’t blame you for that, not for a second – he’ll take you back in. You know he will.”

The boy shakes his head again, trying to ignore the little flare of hope suddenly burning deep in his chest. “And what next? In six months I’ll be back on the street again – they don’t keep you once you turn sixteen. They can’t.”

There is no hint of hesitation before the blue-eyed stranger suggests, “How about the Army? You ever think about that? I know you did. You could be a soldier, kid. You’ll be a Ranger one day, the best of the best.”

And one piece of the puzzle slots into place. It makes sense that the man is former-Army. The wide shoulders, the bulging biceps barely contained inside his jacket, and the way he holds himself with such confidence, even sitting on the floor in a shadowy alley.

The boy has thought about it before, actually. Joining the military. Though he’d been considering the Navy, the Marines even, rather than the Army – he loves the water, more than almost anything else.

But – “What if I’m not good enough?” he whispers, closing his eyes in an attempt to hide from that piercingly familiar blue gaze. “What if they don’t want me? No one has ever wanted me.”

“They’ll want you, kid.” There is warmth and confidence in the stranger’s voice, and the boy lets his head fall back against the wall as a sudden wave of exhaustion crashes over him. 

The man continues, painting the boy a picture with his words. “They’ll want you. Basic training will be tough – brutal, at times – and you’ll think about quitting more than once, but you’ll make it through in one piece, a stronger man. The first few years will be tough, too, but then you’ll meet a man who’ll make it all worthwhile. A colonel.”

“A colonel?”

“Yeah. And he’ll believe in you, kid, just like Father Maghill does. He’ll help you and train you, and take you under his wing, and then…” There is a long pause, and the boy opens his eyes to see the older man smiling softly to himself, those blue eyes gazing off into the distance now. “Then he’ll fall in love with you, just like you’ll fall in love with him. And he’ll do anything for you. You’ll follow him to the ends of the earth if he asks.”

“I’m not like that,” the boy says automatically, though in truth he thinks he might be. He can hear how childish it sounds when he adds quickly, “I like girls, not boys.”

The stranger laughs quietly, blinking back into focus. “Ah, you’re still so young,” he says wistfully. “There’s more than enough time for both. You’ll be happy with him, happier than you think you can ever be.” 

It all sounds so plausible coming from this blue-eyed, wavy-haired man, just like a beautiful bedtime story the boy longs to believe in. He finds himself asking, “So what happens after we meet?”

“You’ll have lots of adventures with some really good friends.” The man seems to realise that isn’t anywhere near enough, and he sighs before continuing, “There’ll be good times and bad times, of course. Lots of challenges, over the years, and danger since you’ll both be Rangers, out on the front lines and beyond. You’ll both be hurt, sometimes seriously, but you’ll be together through it all. You’ll make a difference in the world, and save a lot of lives, and it’ll all be worth it, trust me, when you look back afterwards.”

“We’ll grow old together?”

It could just be the flickering streetlamp and the threatening shadows, but the boy thinks the older man might be crying now. He watches as the man nods, swallowing hard, curious despite himself. “You do grow old together. You’ll be together for nearly forty years, and he’ll love you so very much, even when you think you don’t deserve him.”

“And how does it end?” His voice is barely more than a whisper, his grip on the knife falling looser now.

“With him falling asleep one night next to you, and not waking up the next morning.” The boy watches as the man visibly struggles to pull himself together. “It certainly doesn’t end in this shitty alleyway with a blunt knife.”

“It’s sharp enough.” He thinks it is. He hopes it is. “Anyway, I thought you said I’d be found in time. What the hell does it matter, then, if I do it when you leave?”

“Maybe you cut a little deeper this time, a little further…” The stranger shrugs, trying to appear casual, though the boy can see his muscles tensing, bunching, almost as if he is preparing to leap across the alley to stop him. He tightens his grip on the knife again, though the very thought is somehow less appealing now. The man continues quickly, “Why risk it? It’s the only thing you’ll ever truly regret when you look back over your life. The fact that, for one seemingly hopeless moment, you gave up.”

The boy wants to believe him. Hesitates yet again. “Father Maghill is really there?”

A firm nod. “Yes. He’s already searching for you; he’s been looking everywhere. If you do this, he’ll be the one to find you in the hospital and he’ll blame himself. You’ll always hate the fact that you put him through that guilt.”

“And the Army might really want me?”

“Yes, they’ll want you.” Another nod, and an encouraging smile. “They’ll look after you, and they’ll train you, and they’ll become your family. You’ll grow into a man there. A good man.”

“And this colonel…” All of this is completely impossible, of course. This stranger can’t possibly know what will happen in the future, yet he really does seem so familiar with his bright blue eyes, and the boy wants desperately to trust him, to believe that it will all work out. “He’s really waiting for me? And he’ll love me?”

“Oh, kid. He’ll love you so much, and you’ll adore him.” The older man bites at his lower lip, tears glistening in his eyes again as he tugs at his sleeves, pulling them down over his hands as if hiding his wrists. “He wouldn’t want you to do this, I know he wouldn’t. You’ll always be too scared to tell him. You blame your scars on a broken bottle, and it fools most people, though I was always sure he’d figured out the truth a long time ago.”

The strangeness of that last statement doesn’t even register as the boy lets go of the knife almost without realising what he’s done, and the sound of the handle striking the stone floor of the alley seems to echo around them both, far too loud in the hushed quiet of the night. “Okay,” he says quietly, his own eyes dry and his heart calm. “Okay, then. I’ll go back.”

“Good man,” the stranger tells him, smiling a blindingly bright smile through his tears. “Give Father Maghill my love, and Hannibal, too, when you meet him. And good luck to you, Templeton Peck.”

“Wait, what – ?” The boy blinks, just as the flickering streetlamp gives up entirely for a few seconds, briefly plunging the alley into total darkness. When it fades back in and the shadows fall into place again, the man, whoever he was, is gone.

And the boy suddenly realises why those bright blue eyes seem so familiar.

They are the same eyes that stare back at him when he looks into a mirror.

But that just isn’t possible, is it?

**Author's Note:**

> This story includes talk of suicidal thoughts and actions from the very beginning. It also has mentions of off-screen character death that may have already happened, or might happen in the future.
> 
> But I think it's more optimistic and hopeful than those warnings make it sound. I hope...


End file.
